PhonePe launches made-in-India Indus Appstore

PhonePe has announced the consumer launch of its Indus Appstore in New Delhi. Indus Appstore is PhonePe's attempt at creating a more competitive and localized mobile app store economy for India, which is already the largest mobile apps download market globally. The event was attended by a large number of startup founders and tech industry leaders, reflecting the significance of this launch for India's thriving digital ecosystem.

Indus Appstore allows Indian consumers to download over 2 lakh mobile apps and games, across 45 categories. Users will be able to discover these apps conveniently in 12 Indian languages, thereby catering to 95% of Indians’ language preferences. The app store also offers a brand new short-video based discovery feature, to make new app discovery more engaging for consumers.

In a global first move, Indus Appstore allows app and game developers to choose any 3rd-party payment gateway for in-app billing, and they will not be charged any commission if they use an external payment gateway. At a later date, Indus will also provide its own in-app billing and catalog solutions, but these will remain strictly optional for app developers. Further, to accelerate developer registrations, Indus is offering zero listing fees to developers for one year.

The timing of Indus Appstore's launch gains more relevance given the recent clamor from the Indian startup ecosystem for more free market competition in the mobile app store space.

Sameer Nigam, CEO and Founder PhonePe added, “Indus Appstore challenges the status quo, ushering in an era of more healthy competition in the mobile app marketplace, which in turn should help create a more democratic and vibrant Indian digital ecosystem. Indus Appstore embodies our commitment to building a truly inclusive digital ecosystem where every Indian user feels at home.”